In the first race after the summer break, Aston Martin Red Bull Racing driver Max Verstappen has said his qualifying efforts were ‘frustrating’, even though he was able to secure seventh on the grid for the race.
The twenty year old set a lap time of 2:02.769, which placed him just ahead of Australian team-mate Daniel Ricciardo.
Verstappen said the result was not what he had hoped for, although the conditions were difficult, with the changing conditions causing the team to miscalculate their fuel usage, meaning that Verstappen did not have enough fuel to complete another run.
“Starting seventh is not what we wanted but it was a tricky situation out there today,” said Verstappen.
“It stopped raining towards the end of our laps and the track dried a little bit but if we had stayed out and gone for another lap we would have run out of fuel.
“It’s frustrating as I’m sure we could have been closer to the front.”
The Dutchman is confident that, as a result of the car’s low downforce setup, they will be able to pass the cars ahead easily.
“In general Qualifying was good and the car felt good, we just got caught out in Q3. We have really low downforce on the car so we should be able to overtake some of the cars ahead of us that usually would not be there.
“With the unusual mix at the front it should be an interesting few laps,” he added.
Despite the less that desire results, he feels that the team did make the right decision.
“I think we made the correct decision to go out out on the Intermediates, it was just bad luck that it started raining and we had no fuel left.”
